He married the daughter of a Czech harness maker, Agnes Lepší, on July 17, 1805, and Neumann was the third of their six children: Catherine, Veronica, John, Joan, Louise, and Wenceslaus (or Wenzel).

[6] At age 10, Neumann's parents told him they were prepared to allow him to continue his studies after grammar school, whereas most boys of that time would soon have to begin work.

His father's ideas changed upon having a professor who happened to be vacationing in Prachatitz examine his son and finding Neumann had made greater academic progress than his grades revealed.

Upon moving to a new boarding house where he could enjoy greater solitude and quiet, Neumann's grades distinctly improved, except in his only weak subject, mathematics.

Though the professor of classics was even stricter than the second mentor, Neumann found the study of the humanities very agreeable and achieved the highest grades of his career up to that time in his final term at the gymnasium.

Finding himself with more of a taste for science and secular poetry than theology and the mystics, and discouraged by the difficulty of admission to the seminary, especially with no influential friends to recommend him, Neumann was initially inclined to study medicine, and his father was prepared to pay the tuition for medical school.

Studying ecclesiastical history, Biblical archaeology, and introduction to and exegesis of the Old Testament in his first year, he received the highest possible grade, eminentem, in every subject, including diligence and conduct.

[13] In his second year studying theology, Neumann began to read the reports of the Leopoldine Society on the need for priests in the United States, especially to serve the German-speaking communities there.

There is some indication that Neumann began to attend the university's lectures in French, but this became impossible when the state imposed new regulations in 1834 forbidding seminarians to go out for walks except for four hours a week, two on Tuesday afternoon and two on Thursday.

Henni reassured him that there was a great need for German priests in such dioceses as Detroit, New York, and Vincennes, but advised him that it would be better to remain in Europe than to leave without dimissorial letters.

The next morning, a professor at the University of Munich advised Neumann to get in touch with Bishop Simon Bruté of Vincennes, who was then in Europe recruiting missionaries for his diocese.

However, Räss promised to introduce Neumann to a rich merchant in Paris who was greatly interested in missionaries and would undoubtedly give him a considerable sum and to write to Bishop John Dubois of New York urging him to accept the young Bohemian cleric.

Neumann went on from Strasbourg to Nancy, where he spent four days with the Sisters of St. Charles, some of whom had been brought by Dichtl as novices from Bohemia so that they could return to found a house there, before continuing to Paris by way of Châlons-en-Champagne and Meaux.

It took Neumann four days to get aboard, which he spent praying in the parish church, reading Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life, and practicing his English and French with the locals.

The ship remained outside New York Harbor for another three days waiting for bad weather to abate and for some sick people aboard to recover lest quarantine officials require the captain to transport them back to Europe.

Dubois, who Räss had informed that Neumann and his friends Adalbert Schmidt and John Savel all wanted to go to the American missions, was disappointed when only one man arrived.

There were no parishes in the strict sense, and in his own writings, Neumann always observed correct technical usage in referring to a portion of a diocese as a "mission," "congregation," or "quasi-parish.

[33] The German Catholics in Rochester were delighted by a German-speaking priest's arrival, and some planned to write to Bishop Dubois asking him to assign Neumann there permanently.

After administering his first baptism, he wrote in his journal, "If the child I baptized today dies in the grace of this sacrament, then my journey to America has been repaid a million times, even though I do nothing for the rest of my life."

On several other occasions when the horse wanted to rid himself of his rider, the animal made for the nearby fences and brushed Neumann's legs against them so that the cleric fell ignominiously to the ground.

He and his horse eventually became great friends, even though on one occasion the voracious animal ate a precious quantity of botanical specimens the missionary had collected to send home to Bohemia.

The trustees were convinced the bashful and holy priest was entirely innocent and blamed the jealous neighbor who wanted Neumann to lodge with his family instead of Wirtz's.

He accepted free lodgings from a friendly Catholic, John Schmidt, who lived a mile and a half from the church, which Neumann had to walk every morning over an almost impassable road to say his daily Mass.

He expressed his pleasure upon seeing the more advanced stage of the buildings, the schools, the careful attention to the sick and the dying, and the weekly, even daily rounds made by the young pastor.

Receiving a favorable reply from Prost on September 16, Neumann immediately wrote to Bishop John Hughes, acquainting him with his desire to enter the Redemptorists and asking him to send one or more priests to take over the churches outside Buffalo.

When Hughes learned of the matter, he was not at all inclined to allow a pastor of Neumann's caliber to depart from his diocese, but Prost later wrote, "I appealed to canon law and pointed out that I could not refuse to accept him, even if I wished to.

[43] Neumann arrived in Pittsburgh and presented himself to the Redemptorists on the morning of Sunday, October 18, 1840, where he was invited on the first day to sing the High Mass and preach, which he did despite the fatigue of his long journey from Buffalo.

A growing congregation of Italian-speakers received pastoral care in his private chapel, and Neumann eventually established in Philadelphia the first Italian national parishes in the country.

Discouraged by conflict as well as anti-Catholic riots and arson of religious buildings, Neumann wrote to Rome asking to be replaced as bishop, but Pope Pius IX insisted that he continue.

In 1854, Neumann traveled to Rome and was present at St. Peter's Basilica on December 8, when Pius IX solemnly defined, ex cathedra, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.